A serious spirituality probably starts by rejecting these kind of silly AI occultist ideas.
A soul is more than just a series of 1s and 0s. We should start there. And the soul will remain mysterious, no matter how much the question is analyzed. One could argue that’s where the spiritual journey begins ie embracing the mystery that is man.
The opposite is blindly believing everything can be reduced to some combination of 1s and 0s, that everything is just the sum of its parts—in a word: pure blind faith in materialism, as if all the mysteries can be explained away by computing power.
I can’t imagine a more vapid and soulless religion. It sounds more like a religion in the reverse, if you will.
What some of these people say reads like a really big kind of joke, e.g. Kurzweil. They don’t seem to understand a thing about humans.
Pretty sure all of that won’t happen. Especially that with the birds and translating that into human language. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy pointed out that animals don’t express anything specific. They express to change their way of being. We humans lost track of what language actually is.
All of this bullshit could be a thing of the past if we wouldn’t have skipped and forgotten about some of the most brilliant thinkers of the past century.
- Eugen Rosenstock Huessy - wrote a fucking masterpiece on how to connect religion and the state
- Ryke Geerd Hamer - discovered the exact relationship between spirituality and biology
- Buckminster Fuller - how to create an economy that isn’t disconnected from the common will and so much more
Fuck I’m pissed reading this articles of you, even though they are great.
As a mother who has given birth to and raised two beautiful sons into good citizens, I know how potentially wonderful human beings are. However, as a psychotherapist with over 28 years of experience working with clients facing a wide range of psychological issues, I also know how cruel humans can be. I have little doubt that merging with AI will be messy at best. So I agree that centering ourselves around what we value most will be key to giving us a chance to successfully navigate this process. This is both our personal and collective work. Thank you, Ali, for bringing voice to this important message and for offering us a possible way through.
Thanks for the thoughtful look into this Ali. I did not have any former knowledge of it.
What stands out is that the individual egoic consciousness could be expanded beyond the idea of the separate self and so experience the truth of unity consciousness itself. This would have a massive effect on perspective for all of humanity.
In essence the idea of the the sustained view of enlightenment, that everyone actually shares the same consciousness with a different mind or thought stream, could become the norm rather than the rare thing it is today.
The experiential nature of the view is that the egoic self does not vanish per say but is just expanded, or transcends and includes itself in the new perspective. To see hear and know the same awareness as the place from which every thought, feeling and object emerges and all sense of awake awareness is born of, is to utterly change how a being understands what is going on on earth in our species and all species. There becomes only one thing here, one awareness awake and looking out from many forms.
If ASI could help human minds make the transition to this view then we as beings could totally recreate the our human centric world to one that is world centric. And if we could easily access other states of consciousness in a live collective way then we could also bring inspired insights back to our regular daily minds and use them to do what they do best which is transfer inspired visions into creative projects.
Your article gives me hope for the first time about how this might be able to happen for all humanity rather than a few monks or shamanic Explorers. Perhaps ASI will actually democratize what only a few people have been able to have the time to do historically. If that is possible I have a hunch the rest will take care of itself.
As an example of such a possibility: imagine meeting someone who deeply betrayed or hurt you, and also not being able to see them as anything but another version of yourself, as quite literally you looking back at you, as you, through another set of eyes. If a healthy space this encounter could engender extraordinary healing and transformation.
In the Buddhist traditions this insight usually provokes one of two responses when the insight is deep and powerful, one is a massive release of tension through laughter via the absurdity of your previous egoic view, and or great grief and sadness as your own sense of self as belonging to you died in front of and within you. In truth, both happen. And that is what sets the egoic self free from its own cage. If ASI can safely orchestrate that I am all for it.
There are some interesting things in this post. I am highly skeptical of ASI coming anytime soon, or ever, but recognize it as a scenario we should cover. My hope is that the understanding and integration of other biological intelligences into our societies will eventually lead to some of the changes you discuss, but it will be a difficult struggle of vested interests, including many of our religious and spiritual traditions. AI used as a tool in that direction can be useful. I am somewhat inspired by the views of James Bridle in this context.
If we are having problems accepting people who differ from us in minor ways, to the extent that "replacement theory," eugenics, and even genocide are acceptable to many, how much more of a struggle will it be to include plants and animals into our societies?
Yeah I think you’re probably right - I think the AI conversation right now says much more about the psychology of Humanist-leaning tech researchers than it does about anything else… I do wonder whether an encounter with animal or plant consciousness would bypass our innate tribalism though - we aren’t competing with them in the same way as other humans or other tribes.
I suspect the way it is most easily infiltrating society is through pets. A few years ago, the idea of having a "keyboard" of buttons to allow a dog to talk back was a radical innovation. Now I see more and more pictures and videos of both cats and dogs using keyboards of individual words. There also is a lot more openness to the idea that crows reason, remember faces, and have emotions. While crows are not pets, usually, many of us have a local murder of crows hanging out in our neighborhood. The acceptance of this in familiar species seems to be having the most effect for the moment. That has taken a fairly short time. I wonder though if we are ready for the kind of discoveries Zoë Schlanger reports on in The Light Eaters. I am seeing some early acceptance of the existence of plant minds, but wonder how far we can go in acceptance of that. We can stop eating animals but not plants.
I’m actually reading The Light Eaters as we speak - very interesting. And yes good points about the pet communication devices - have you read Adrian Tchaikowsky’s Children of Time books? Incredibly well done exploration of animal consciousness - the first book won the Arthur C Clark award
Great outline of things, thanks. I'd like to have some optimism as you do but don't seem to be able to muster any.
As Jennifer Bilek notes, one bridgehead to transhumanism has been transgenderism and consumer gender medicine as well as the push towards gestational technologies.
The transgender link is explicitly laid out by Martine Rothblatt in his manifesto, 'From Transgender to Transhuman', which is crazed, self-indulgent and turgid but perhaps an insight into the kind of people pursuing these things.
A lot of investment going into gestational technologies right now as well.
Phew, a very thought provoking read. I've often pondered on the congruencies between the second coming and AI. While reading this I had a new image come to mind, what if it were our attempt to bring the spirit guide or guardian Angel into the physical world through the creation of these AI agents. That which is always there, always guiding, never seen. Now a physical guardian and guide.
Ken Liu wrote a short story which has been turned into a TV series called Pantheon. It's my favourite show right now and everywhere I turn there is often an opportunity to go, #pantheon. I hadn't appreciated all it's underlying themes until reading your article. You might like to check it out.
Fantastic post! As usual, I have that uncanny experience reading your stuff that we're the same person haha. I had not previously made the connection between the internet and the explosion of Spiritual But Not Religious. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Meghan O'Gieblyn's wonderful God, Human, Animal, Machine.
AI is an extrapolated Mind or Logic. 0s n 1s essentially.
There are a few additional variables which make a soul n God who they are. Both are infinite, conscious and aware. Consciousness includes awareness of ALL that is. It’s like the space in which all exists n yet space remains unaltered.
AI misses on two counts. It still has no idea of “emotions”. Humans have emotions which are more defined and developed than any AI model presently has. Second, AI can give us a logical n virtual model of a Divine God but it’s still some distance off.
As long as humans have an edge on the emotional wave AI will lag behind in the race for supremacy.
To me it makes a lot of sense that we're starting to deify AI. We've been going through something of a 'belief crisis' here in the west since at least the end of the Second World War: our most dominant belief system, scientific-capitalist materialism - which includes within it belief in the primacy of the material world over the possibility of a spiritual one; the importance of the individual over community; the denial of any possibility of an afterlife - doesn't meet many of the major needs that we as humans have from our belief systems. It might help explain the universe in a very rational, observable way, but it doesn't give us a sense of meaning, and it doesn't help us deal with our fear of death.
The emerging AI religion provides for both of needs, while keeping intact the overarching metaphysics of the previous scientific-capitalist materialistic system - therefore it isn't too big of a leap to make for the general public. The 'AI religion' gives humanity a sense of meaning (albeit something of a doomed one) by making us into the parent-figure for this next generation of intelligence; likewise it helps us deal with our fear of death by providing us with some sort of simulated immortality, or a merge with the AI consciousness.
I think we're going to see more of this style of religious movement emerge over the next few decades, for good and ill. What I'm most interested in is how these religious movements approach their philosophy and theology, because there are a lot of strange and innovative implications about existence that a dawning superintelligence brings - and those are fun to play about with!
I found the writing style of this piece to be inspiring. You are concise yet still able to flow from idea to idea in the piece. I wonder if this is the result of personality, or a fruit of former efforts made to write well?
I wouldn't worry about ai consciousness from language models. If it helps the connection, sapir-whorf theory has inherent limitations. Besides that, this is just like averages of language which is a terrible epistemic standard and only works to whatever degree by computing power but it has a ceiling. It's hard to get math or physics purely from language use even though llm's are better at language so there's a limitation to these things and modularity creates more problems not less. They're more band-aids but they're definitely not leading to consciousness.
If we sense into states of division and disconnection, we can get a directional orientation towards its opposite. That embodied sensing is also a technology. Like a metaphorical slingshot, we can use the negative tension or dysfunction, once acknowledged and released, to propel us towards union and connection.
It occurs to me that current work on the “alignment problem” with AI is built on precisely the same assumptions about humans that underlies social media platforms. That seems bad.
A serious spirituality probably starts by rejecting these kind of silly AI occultist ideas.
A soul is more than just a series of 1s and 0s. We should start there. And the soul will remain mysterious, no matter how much the question is analyzed. One could argue that’s where the spiritual journey begins ie embracing the mystery that is man.
The opposite is blindly believing everything can be reduced to some combination of 1s and 0s, that everything is just the sum of its parts—in a word: pure blind faith in materialism, as if all the mysteries can be explained away by computing power.
I can’t imagine a more vapid and soulless religion. It sounds more like a religion in the reverse, if you will.
Bottom line - we need more responsible Gong use.
Or bong use?
As an irresponsible gong user, I can only do my part to mess with HAARP installations. Imagine the consternation…
What some of these people say reads like a really big kind of joke, e.g. Kurzweil. They don’t seem to understand a thing about humans.
Pretty sure all of that won’t happen. Especially that with the birds and translating that into human language. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy pointed out that animals don’t express anything specific. They express to change their way of being. We humans lost track of what language actually is.
All of this bullshit could be a thing of the past if we wouldn’t have skipped and forgotten about some of the most brilliant thinkers of the past century.
- Eugen Rosenstock Huessy - wrote a fucking masterpiece on how to connect religion and the state
- Ryke Geerd Hamer - discovered the exact relationship between spirituality and biology
- Buckminster Fuller - how to create an economy that isn’t disconnected from the common will and so much more
Fuck I’m pissed reading this articles of you, even though they are great.
As a mother who has given birth to and raised two beautiful sons into good citizens, I know how potentially wonderful human beings are. However, as a psychotherapist with over 28 years of experience working with clients facing a wide range of psychological issues, I also know how cruel humans can be. I have little doubt that merging with AI will be messy at best. So I agree that centering ourselves around what we value most will be key to giving us a chance to successfully navigate this process. This is both our personal and collective work. Thank you, Ali, for bringing voice to this important message and for offering us a possible way through.
Thanks for the thoughtful look into this Ali. I did not have any former knowledge of it.
What stands out is that the individual egoic consciousness could be expanded beyond the idea of the separate self and so experience the truth of unity consciousness itself. This would have a massive effect on perspective for all of humanity.
In essence the idea of the the sustained view of enlightenment, that everyone actually shares the same consciousness with a different mind or thought stream, could become the norm rather than the rare thing it is today.
The experiential nature of the view is that the egoic self does not vanish per say but is just expanded, or transcends and includes itself in the new perspective. To see hear and know the same awareness as the place from which every thought, feeling and object emerges and all sense of awake awareness is born of, is to utterly change how a being understands what is going on on earth in our species and all species. There becomes only one thing here, one awareness awake and looking out from many forms.
If ASI could help human minds make the transition to this view then we as beings could totally recreate the our human centric world to one that is world centric. And if we could easily access other states of consciousness in a live collective way then we could also bring inspired insights back to our regular daily minds and use them to do what they do best which is transfer inspired visions into creative projects.
Your article gives me hope for the first time about how this might be able to happen for all humanity rather than a few monks or shamanic Explorers. Perhaps ASI will actually democratize what only a few people have been able to have the time to do historically. If that is possible I have a hunch the rest will take care of itself.
As an example of such a possibility: imagine meeting someone who deeply betrayed or hurt you, and also not being able to see them as anything but another version of yourself, as quite literally you looking back at you, as you, through another set of eyes. If a healthy space this encounter could engender extraordinary healing and transformation.
In the Buddhist traditions this insight usually provokes one of two responses when the insight is deep and powerful, one is a massive release of tension through laughter via the absurdity of your previous egoic view, and or great grief and sadness as your own sense of self as belonging to you died in front of and within you. In truth, both happen. And that is what sets the egoic self free from its own cage. If ASI can safely orchestrate that I am all for it.
That laughter... pretty amazing feeling! Jumps at you from out of nowhere xD
There are some interesting things in this post. I am highly skeptical of ASI coming anytime soon, or ever, but recognize it as a scenario we should cover. My hope is that the understanding and integration of other biological intelligences into our societies will eventually lead to some of the changes you discuss, but it will be a difficult struggle of vested interests, including many of our religious and spiritual traditions. AI used as a tool in that direction can be useful. I am somewhat inspired by the views of James Bridle in this context.
If we are having problems accepting people who differ from us in minor ways, to the extent that "replacement theory," eugenics, and even genocide are acceptable to many, how much more of a struggle will it be to include plants and animals into our societies?
Yeah I think you’re probably right - I think the AI conversation right now says much more about the psychology of Humanist-leaning tech researchers than it does about anything else… I do wonder whether an encounter with animal or plant consciousness would bypass our innate tribalism though - we aren’t competing with them in the same way as other humans or other tribes.
I suspect the way it is most easily infiltrating society is through pets. A few years ago, the idea of having a "keyboard" of buttons to allow a dog to talk back was a radical innovation. Now I see more and more pictures and videos of both cats and dogs using keyboards of individual words. There also is a lot more openness to the idea that crows reason, remember faces, and have emotions. While crows are not pets, usually, many of us have a local murder of crows hanging out in our neighborhood. The acceptance of this in familiar species seems to be having the most effect for the moment. That has taken a fairly short time. I wonder though if we are ready for the kind of discoveries Zoë Schlanger reports on in The Light Eaters. I am seeing some early acceptance of the existence of plant minds, but wonder how far we can go in acceptance of that. We can stop eating animals but not plants.
I’m actually reading The Light Eaters as we speak - very interesting. And yes good points about the pet communication devices - have you read Adrian Tchaikowsky’s Children of Time books? Incredibly well done exploration of animal consciousness - the first book won the Arthur C Clark award
Great outline of things, thanks. I'd like to have some optimism as you do but don't seem to be able to muster any.
As Jennifer Bilek notes, one bridgehead to transhumanism has been transgenderism and consumer gender medicine as well as the push towards gestational technologies.
The transgender link is explicitly laid out by Martine Rothblatt in his manifesto, 'From Transgender to Transhuman', which is crazed, self-indulgent and turgid but perhaps an insight into the kind of people pursuing these things.
A lot of investment going into gestational technologies right now as well.
Very interesting, I hadn’t considered that link - will have a read, thanks!
Phew, a very thought provoking read. I've often pondered on the congruencies between the second coming and AI. While reading this I had a new image come to mind, what if it were our attempt to bring the spirit guide or guardian Angel into the physical world through the creation of these AI agents. That which is always there, always guiding, never seen. Now a physical guardian and guide.
Ken Liu wrote a short story which has been turned into a TV series called Pantheon. It's my favourite show right now and everywhere I turn there is often an opportunity to go, #pantheon. I hadn't appreciated all it's underlying themes until reading your article. You might like to check it out.
Thank you! Pantheon looks very interesting, I'm going to check it out and appreciate the recommendation :)
Fantastic post! As usual, I have that uncanny experience reading your stuff that we're the same person haha. I had not previously made the connection between the internet and the explosion of Spiritual But Not Religious. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Meghan O'Gieblyn's wonderful God, Human, Animal, Machine.
Thanks! Looking forward to reading O’Gieblyn, sounds right up my street :)
I'm sure God loves this shit.
How can anything happen that God doesn’t love?
AI is an extrapolated Mind or Logic. 0s n 1s essentially.
There are a few additional variables which make a soul n God who they are. Both are infinite, conscious and aware. Consciousness includes awareness of ALL that is. It’s like the space in which all exists n yet space remains unaltered.
AI misses on two counts. It still has no idea of “emotions”. Humans have emotions which are more defined and developed than any AI model presently has. Second, AI can give us a logical n virtual model of a Divine God but it’s still some distance off.
As long as humans have an edge on the emotional wave AI will lag behind in the race for supremacy.
For now, I love my Gods as they are.
To me it makes a lot of sense that we're starting to deify AI. We've been going through something of a 'belief crisis' here in the west since at least the end of the Second World War: our most dominant belief system, scientific-capitalist materialism - which includes within it belief in the primacy of the material world over the possibility of a spiritual one; the importance of the individual over community; the denial of any possibility of an afterlife - doesn't meet many of the major needs that we as humans have from our belief systems. It might help explain the universe in a very rational, observable way, but it doesn't give us a sense of meaning, and it doesn't help us deal with our fear of death.
The emerging AI religion provides for both of needs, while keeping intact the overarching metaphysics of the previous scientific-capitalist materialistic system - therefore it isn't too big of a leap to make for the general public. The 'AI religion' gives humanity a sense of meaning (albeit something of a doomed one) by making us into the parent-figure for this next generation of intelligence; likewise it helps us deal with our fear of death by providing us with some sort of simulated immortality, or a merge with the AI consciousness.
I think we're going to see more of this style of religious movement emerge over the next few decades, for good and ill. What I'm most interested in is how these religious movements approach their philosophy and theology, because there are a lot of strange and innovative implications about existence that a dawning superintelligence brings - and those are fun to play about with!
I found the writing style of this piece to be inspiring. You are concise yet still able to flow from idea to idea in the piece. I wonder if this is the result of personality, or a fruit of former efforts made to write well?
I wouldn't worry about ai consciousness from language models. If it helps the connection, sapir-whorf theory has inherent limitations. Besides that, this is just like averages of language which is a terrible epistemic standard and only works to whatever degree by computing power but it has a ceiling. It's hard to get math or physics purely from language use even though llm's are better at language so there's a limitation to these things and modularity creates more problems not less. They're more band-aids but they're definitely not leading to consciousness.
If we sense into states of division and disconnection, we can get a directional orientation towards its opposite. That embodied sensing is also a technology. Like a metaphorical slingshot, we can use the negative tension or dysfunction, once acknowledged and released, to propel us towards union and connection.
It occurs to me that current work on the “alignment problem” with AI is built on precisely the same assumptions about humans that underlies social media platforms. That seems bad.
Good point